A tour around the house where Charles Dickens was born

There is no author more connected with Christmas than Charles Dickens. On the
eve of the 200th anniversary of his birth, The Telegraph takes a tour around
the house where he was born with Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, his
great-great-great granddaughter.

The start of A Tale of Two Cities byCharles Dickensis one of the most famous opening lines ever written. Set in London and Paris, the story explores the lead up to the French revolution and the brutality that followed.

Yet the author's early life really was a tale of good times and bad times in two cities - Portsmouth, where he was born, and London, where he made his name.

The good times began when Charles John Huffam Dickens fell "mewling" into the world in the master bedroom of a comfortable but nondescript house on the outskirts of Portsmouth on February 7, 1812 - his mother, Elizabeth, had been dancing at a ball the evening before he was born.

It was, his great-great-great granddaughter Lucinda Dickens Hawksley believes, a very happy time for the young Dickens family.

But things soon took a turn for the worse - within a few months, they had done a "moonlit flit" from the house to escape the rent collectors.

Moving house, and city, was a constant theme of Dickens's childhood.

His father, John - immortalised as Mr Micawber in his 1850 novel David Copperfield - was incapable of living within his means. Although he was lower middleclass and gainfully employed in the Navy Pay Office, he was always running from his creditors.

The Dickens family ended up in London and then, finally, a debtors' prison.

Their eldest son was sent to work in a rat-infested blacking factory overlooking the Thames, where he spent long days putting labels on bottles of black ink used on boots and shoes.

Bad times indeed for any 12-year-old but especially so for Charles who was, by his own admission, a very sensitive child who was "easily hurt".

Ms Dickens Hawksley, who has written a book about her illustrious ancestor, told The Telegraph that Charles's parents did not think their son, who'd arguably go on to be the world's first superstar, was anything special.

According to family folklore, their hopes were pinned to his elder sister, the musically gifted Frances.

"Nobody could ever have really thought when he was born 'wow, this child is going to be world famous'," said Ms Hawksley as she stood in the room where he was born.

"And that 200 years on, the love of Dickens all over the world would be just as strong as it was in his lifetime."